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#HowardSchultz is not a serious candidate for President. He has no real desire to run, never mind win. The Presidency is not his goal. His goal is to control policy in @TheDemocrats.
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.@HowardSchultz not a Ross Perot style billionaire setting out to rattle cages, naively thinking he can buy his way onto ballots in 50 states and have a credible chance of winning by appealing to the disenchanted. He's a hostage-taker. And his hostage is the Democratic Party.
In all his interviews, he seems fixated upon "extremists within both parties". His example for extremism within the Democrats? Support for a return to higher marginal tax rates, and expanded or even universal health care like you find in every other advanced democracy on earth.
#HowardSchultz uses the typical billionaire defence that philanthropy is more efficient than taxation, even though philanthropy doesn't build roads or sewer systems, it builds opera houses that you attend with your wife, and schools that you send your kids to.
By refusing to enter the party primary, he's attempting to constrict the universe of options in the Democratic primary. Right now, he represents an outside threat to the Democrats: "give up this taxation thing or I'll run as a spoiler, and I'm rich and arrogant enough to do it".
If a Democrat comes along in the primaries who parrots his "we don't have enough money for universal health care and other essential public services that would necessitate a re-examination of the taxation scheme" stance and they win the nomination...
...he will likely throw his support behind that person, bow out of his fake run, and rest content that he can go on giving only 1% of his wealth to charities that directly benefit him without worrying about paying more in taxes.
A third party run for the Presidency is unnecessarily expensive, especially when there is an open nomination in one party ready for the taking. Even his complete lack of government experience isn't disqualifying in a party primary, as 2016 taught us.
A *threatened* third party run, however, is a very cost-efficient way of limiting the universe of policy options within the Democratic primaries, without ever having to prove that there is, in fact, a plurality constituency for his anti-taxation, anti-health care platform.
#HowardSchultz wants to scare Democratic voters into opting for the candidate he is least likely to run against.
Nothing about #HowardSchultz screams "serious candidate" - I'm not sure he's even set up an exploratory committee. It could all be written off as billionaire arrogance and hubris, and I'm sure it's some of that, but it's also raw self-interest.
.@HowardSchultz sees how popular a return to higher marginal taxation rates and universal health care has become thanks to @AOC and others, and he sees that as a threat. He is attempting to hold the Democratic Party hostage to his personal financial concerns.
There is no route to victory for a third party candidate seeking the Presidency. Even Donald Trump was smart (!) enough to realize that, when he decided not to seek the Reform Party nomination.
There's a reason why the US remains a two party system (no, not Duverger's law), and that's because the parties have written the rules so that they are the only ones who CAN be credible contenders.
The GOP/Dem candidate is automatically on the ballot; anyone else has to navigate an arcane labyrinth of 50 different sets of rules, deadlines, and other requirements. Only a fool would willingly opt for that instead of trying to capture the open nomination of a major party.
So call out his attempted hostage-taking for what it is. Don't treat his threat as anything more than an attempt to force the Democrats to adopt policy solely for his personal benefit, with a soupçon of vanity and misplaced ego thrown in (he also has a book to sell right now).
Also, while we're at it, let's declare a moratorium on people with no government experience attempting to run for the most important elected office in the world. The US Presidency is not an entry-level position.
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Obvious sock puppet account is obvious. Based on all the Jacob Wohl RTs, I'm gonna guess Surefire Intelligence finally got themselves a real gig? Surely Schultz could shell out for a decent fake grassroots bot operation.
